you have to be a little bit crazy to survive

Entries tagged with pain

I was part of an elite, armed investigative team going into an ocean-side science station to find out what had happened to it. Only the first part of the station was on land, the rest of which was located underwater, and it was connected by corridors, stairs, and elevators. The first section had bad lighting, papers and equipment scattered everywhere, and finally we started finding bodies as we went into the underwater sections.

The group was split up at some point, and one of the other smaller groups was attacked. A girl survived her initial injuries and we had her resting at the makeshift medical room we set up. My sub-group did some more exploring and had an encounter with another of the things that had attacked her, and they were freakish humanoid forms with weird delicate-seeming spikes and rings of almost barbed-wire shaped protrusions all over their faces.

I don't think I actually managed to kill it, but I was able to clear an area and noticed a map on the wall. It showed a side view of the complex with each area marked as a white rectangle with connections between each section. There were only about four or five sections and it didn't seem to go as far down as it could, more outwards into the ocean water. There was also a second floor section about half-way between the initial entry area and one of the sections out in the water, but I had a feeling the source of the problems was down and not up. I was trying to figure out how to get to the next section further into the water, but ended up going back to where the majority of our people were for the moment.

The girl in the medical room started showing signs of changing into one of the creatures. Stuff was beginning to grow out of her face and she started screaming as the changes became more severe. At some point she calmed down and dazedly suggested she go further into the complex alone, because maybe the creatures would leave her alone now that she was becoming like them. I had a bad feeling she was hurting so bad, she was in fact planning suicide by putting herself at the mercy of the enemy.

She became too disoriented to use for the plan, but one of our big marines was showing signs of changing too, yet he had not been bitten or injured. Did that mean the virulent creature DNA was somehow airborne? His changes weren't as severe, but he had a weird line of almost stitch-looking spines set flush into his skin, that traveled from roughly his chin up across his cheeks to his forehead on both sides of his face. He suggested he should try the plan for getting further into the complex without getting eaten.

My perspective shifted to the marine, and he had already made it much further and deeper into the complex. This area appeared to have been built into solid ground, the shallow end of the ocean floor. I could see a bunch of the creatures ahead, and as they started rushing towards me I thought the plan was going to fail after all. But they slowed down, and then started walking up the side of a ridge of nearby dirt. I had a headset on, and I said over the communications to the rest of the team, "I think they're trying to show me something."

The ridge of packed dirt was taller than me, so it took climbing it to see what lay beyond. I beheld a huge crater, so gigantic it nearly broke my brain and gave me vertigo. But I held my place and tried to figure out what had happened here. The shape of the crater almost made it feel like a ridiculously-huge sphere had once rested here, but really it must have been the end result of a huge excavation. I didn't remember seeing anything like this on the wall map, because a room this size would have dwarfed the scale used in that map. Thus, it was some kind of mega-secret project that had ended up killing a lot of people and turned the rest into aliens.

At the very bottom of the crater I could see what looked like a small exposed edge of dirty, beige-colored metal. Was that part of an alien craft? How come it had not been excavated fully? Had they found other pieces before reaching that one, or was the alien DNA so nasty that it had affected people almost immediately once they started uncovering that piece? Maybe it was some kind of space-microbe on the outside of a ship and nobody had even seen what else lay beneath the dirt.

Back at the command center the team had set up, there were lines of chat on a screen that had been sent from the marine (so much for the audio signal idea). The first two were something along the lines of "Here goes nothing." and "[soldier's name], signing off." Suddenly a new line appeared, in all caps, and it was maybe ten letters smooshed together that indicated the man was still conscious and still at least someone in charge of his own mind.

Then I was Mei in Overwatch, where I was using my ice-blast gun to freeze and kill the alien creatures and they gave experience points every time they died. I was keeping up with respawn so I only had to kill one or two at a time and not a whole room. And finally I woke up.

-------

Thoughts: I would have liked to have left the end off, but it just kind of shows how doofy the subconscious can be. I had a great, freaky, dark theme going on there, thanks dream! :P I really do wish I could remember what exactly the lines of text were, I almost think part of the last one was "IAMGOOD" but I'm not sure. I also vaguely remember something coming up about depressurization at one point but I am not sure where that fell into the dream and it was most likely one of the more messed up parts of dream logic.

I don't remember much of this dream anymore, but I do remember that somewhere along the line, a doctor started putting these long, super-thin IV needles into the backs of my hands. She (I think it was a she, anyways) started more on the knuckle side of my hands and made the IVs go straight towards my wrists, right under the skin. She did several in a row right next to each other on both my hands. This process was not at all comfortable, although after a while I started to not feel them. I believe it was because I was getting some kind of painkiller from the IVs that were already in.

This is the point where things start making even less sense. I don't remember the specifics of what I was doing in the dream after that, aside from it seems I was going places and doing things. When I would move my hands, the IVs would hurt like heck because I was disturbing them. Sometimes it would just be from movement itself, and other times because I was sort of pulling against the limits of the thing tubes attached to the IVs.

I'm not sure if this was going on because I was actually supposed to be lying on a hospital bed somewhere and just imagining going around doing stuff, or if it was some kind of virtual simulation in my head, or what. The thing I remember most is the pain, and it was exactly the sort of pain one would expect in that situation. (In real life I've experienced having IVs in my arms and one or two in the back of my hand but never more than one at the same time.)

I don't remember anything else, but the memory of the pain stayed with me after waking and really made me wonder what was going on in that dream.

I was standing on a sidewalk in a city somewhere, but the area I was in was really wide open. I looked up at the sky, and saw a huge flock of seagulls going by. I remember thinking that was bizarre, as we don't get seagulls here like ever. (So apparently, the city was local to me in Maryland.)

Then suddenly it was like every beak in that flock turned directly towards me, and all I could really see was a whole lot of pointy things lining up and I knew they were going to come after me. There was something next to me... a baby stroller or a shopping cart? Can't remember what exactly, but it had a blanket over part of it and I pulled the blanket off and hid under it.

This didn't work as well as it could have, as the birds arrived and started trying to jab at me through it. Owwww! I think someone else showed up and scared them off more by accident than actually trying, and I told them about the weirdness of the attack and that now I was paranoid all the birds were out to get me. They seemed to sort of half believe me.

The next part I remember was going to a warehouse by the water, a huge lake or river. I went inside and started preparing like 80's montage getting-dressed-in-super-hero-outfit style. Mind you, the end result was sort of steampunk anime goth and my weapon was a broom that had a broken part near the bristle end, yet still remained attached somehow almost like there was a rope inside it. This let the end of the broom swing around at the point where it was broken. And the finishing touch: a pair of dark sunglasses. Because nobody is truly cool without shades, man.

I went back outside and could see a ridiculous amount of birds flocking far over the water. I yelled some sort of challenge at them (probably something totally stellar, like, "Come get me, you assholes!"), and the flock started looking severely agitated and almost boiling with energy. Weirdly enough, the birds seemed to start almost melting together, merging into this weird almost digital-looking sphere-ish shape with white and purple 8-bit triangle patterns on it, that didn't really keep its shape very well but came flying over the water towards me.

Batter up! I swung my broom right into it as it arrived and... the broom kinda got stuck in it, like the thing was sticky. Trying to pull it out just made it suck in further... and then somehow the whole thing transformed into a short gay fashion-designer guy in a black suit and trendy short black haircut. He said he was sorry for the trouble and that things had been taken care of. So... I walked back towards the nearby house with him (that was apparently mine) and offered for him to come in and have drinks.

I don't remember most of this dream, but I do remember part where I was in a hilly area with a lot of grass and a few trees here and there. It was daylight, and the dream was presented half from the point of view that I was a real person and half from a video game graphic user interface.

I was standing in an open grassy area talking to someone who I think was supposed to be with me for whatever it was we were doing. I then received some kind of update through the interface POV that showed where we needed to go on the game map next. The target spot was up on a hill that had a steep, rocky rise closest to us and would require walking around to find the grassy slope up.

I decided it was shorter to just climb up the cliff, but the guy behind me wasn't so sure. I was almost able to go over the top of the cliff and then it was like running into an invisible wall (typical video game exploration problem). Apparently it was supposed to be truly impossible to shortcut over the cliff.

I kept pushing it, trying to reach further over the cliff, and then my hand got really hard to move. I tried pulling it out of whatever it was stuck in (the edge of the game, yay dream logic) and that didn't work so well, though I could drag it along the forbidden edge there a bit and get it closer to me. Mind you, this hurt but I finally got my hand unstuck and backed away from the level edge.

The first dream was rather long and I barely remember any of it, but it involved zombies who passed on their disease by biting. They could also make zombies out of animals, and although the animal bites didn't make the disease contagious to a person, they were vicious and obviously getting any sort of injury doesn't help one's cause in staying un-zombified. For part of the dream I was indoors and I think underground, which was bad because zombies did better in the dark. The end of it had me and a guy who would be like the main or almost-main character in a movie (if I were the main) outside in the sunlight, with some kind of supposedly-protective circle of branches around us.

The circle was probably a good thirty or forty feet wide, so there was a good amount of room to move, and I think there was only one zombie beyond the circle at the moment but there were a lot more animals. I remember specifically a squirrel or two, and one of them managed to get into the circle and bite me on the back of my right hand (OW yes it definitely very much hurt). There was a third guy with us I think, and I was yelling at him that this circle thing wasn't keeping the bad crap out like it was supposed to and realized right around then that he'd been zombified just now. The whole thing was going to hell and I'm not really sure how it ended, but I woke up really scared and realized it had been the first nightmare of that type I'd had in quite a while (the typical scary-nightmare or horror-movie inspired thing). I was disappointed I'd gone through the whole thing without realizing it was a dream, because if I had, I could have woken myself up.

Well, I went back to sleep because I was way too tired to get up. I went almost immediately back to dreaming. I was in my (randomly dream-created) house, with my (randomly dream-created) boyfriend and family, and it was night time. I was afraid the zombies would attack, as if part of the old dream had carried on to this new dream. Suddenly my boyfriend revealed that he was one, and I ran out of the house. I remember very little of this dream and I wish I could because I'm pretty sure it was epic-scale. I eventually met up with a slightly overweight middle-age lady with a kindly face and medium-length, kinda-curly brown hair. She knew who I was, and told me that I was very important to stopping the evil.

I think I was telling her about what had happened so far, and as I was going over the beginning, the dream sort of flowed into my narrative and thus ended and started to repeat. This time I was back in my house at night where I'd started (though the house had changed) and my boyfriend was there again with my family. I think I was telling them about the first dream, as if I'd just had it or something, and I told them we needed to lock the doors and windows to make sure the zombies didn't get in because I didn't think it was just a dream. Then one of the zombies I recognized came to the front door, I could see him, and as I was freaking out I began to realize my family and boyfriend were all zombies and they were saying something like "she's not ready yet."

I'm not sure what happened to the zombie outside (I think they let him in) but he wasn't out there anymore and I ran outside to get away from them all. I ran left along the sidewalk and I remember thinking it was important I stay under the stars. I looked up and saw what looked like a yellow glow-in-the-dark sword-shaped mouse pointer in the sky pointing to a specific star, so I ran that direction (which was sort of the way I was already going, to my right a little but for the moment I was staying on the sidewalk instead of crossing the street).

An expensive black luxury sedan that I think was a BMW suddenly seemed to be swerving at me or chasing me, so I had to change directions. I silently begged the sky for more help and saw the sword was now on a star further to my left now and right on the horizon, leading me onto grass to my left that dipped down a hill and into some forest and stuff. I was still near the top of the hill as the car stopped and two black people got out, a guy and a girl, dressed nicely and I remember the guy had very short hair.

They asked me what the heck my problem was, and I forget what reason they were actually there but I begged them for a ride. They asked me where I wanted to go and I forget where I said (San Paulo?) and they were cool with that. So I got in the back seat of the car which was now for some reason a convertible, and I had a pillow in my arms when we drove right back past my house so I hugged it and looked away from the house hoping they wouldn't recognize me but at this point I knew I had red hair and I had a bad feeling they would... but we weren't chased immediately. There didn't seem to be anybody at all outside the house as I peeked back at it when we'd gone past.

The couple said they had to make a stop, which was uncomfortably only a few blocks from my house up a side street, but I had barely started telling them about the zombies and I don't think they believed me. The lady they met was going to give them some food they'd ordered, I think they'd found her through some kind of internet service. It was the lady who I had met in the first dream, the one who said I was important, but all I knew now was that she was somehow important, I just couldn't remember why. We were all out of the car as she gave the people their food, and then asked me, "Do I know you from somewhere?"

I answered something about not being sure, and she asked me what my name was. I said, "Shane..." and then it was like it was really hard to remember my last name, it was like I knew the one I had was wrong, and that there was another name I was supposed to be known by. So finally I got it out, "...Dawson" (ahahaha my brain must be taking inspiration from YouTube, even if I have wanted the name Shane for years before running across Shane Dawson). She was sort of looking at me a little funny, like she might be figuring something out, but the other people were saying we had to go now so I left with them.

A few blocks later we suddenly got rammed from behind by another car (and now our car was back to being a sedan). The guy driving finally believed about the zombies, and was wondering how they'd found us so fast. There was some dream illogic behind my response ("They're editing the video!" as if there had been video footage of us going by, and access to fully processed video feed for editing meant they... somehow had all the information they needed) and now it was a car chase.

As if this were a bad Ed Wood movie, we found ourselves in heavy city traffic in broad daylight a few moments later. The zombie car was still too close behind and now they had a large, odd tractor thing on their side as well. I kept telling the driver he needed a wide open road, this kind of car should be able to go really fast and this was totally the wrong area to try and escape in. The girlfriend of the guy agreed with me, and even suggested it might be better if I took a cab instead as those guys could drive fast.

I think we heard on the radio or something that there was an actual ghostbusting service being advertised. I asked the people if they knew about that, they didn't really but the girl drug out a phone book and handed it to me, it was supposed to be the White Pages or something, and she apologized saying it might be harder to find in there. She also gave me her cell phone to borrow, and I dialed 911 while I was looking through the book trying to figure out what the heck section ghostbusting would be under. The operator wasn't honestly sure she believed what I was trying to tell her about the zombies and all, and was fairly sure she couldn't help me. The last thing I asked her was if she had any guesses as to where the ghostbusting number would be, and she said to try the services section. Conveniently, there was such a section, and it wasn't huge.

In that section of the phone book (which was difficult to read because reading is often difficult in dreams), I finally found a page with spiritual services, a lot of occult-related stuff though too much of it seemed like it was places that just sold stuff and had fun-houses and maybe palm readings or fortune tellers if lucky. Still, that had potential and an ad I saw for a place was one I wanted to go to but wasn't sure how to get there, and was about to mention it. The girl suddenly tried handing me a very slim "phone book" that she said was the Yellow Pages with a warm, triumphant smile like it was way more what I needed... but I still wanted to go to the place where the ad was and was about to ask again.

I noticed the shops in the area we were in were a lot like the section of the phone book I'd been looking in. Then the guy said something like, "What about this place?" and suddenly he was pulled over right by that one shop I'd seen the ad for, and in the window there was a sign for "Horror House" though the windows hadn't been cleaned in a while and the whole neighborhood looked really dumpy.

Well, it was the place I wanted to go and we were sitting ducks with the zombies still too close though it seems like we'd temporarily lost them. I said sure I'd go in and begged them to please stay and wait for me in case I had to run out fast again. I grabbed Teddy (my actual teddy bear) who for some reason was in the car as if he'd been with me the whole time, but I left my purse with them as if it was somehow safer to do so (??) and also left the door open even with the zombie threat because I was that worried I'd have to run right back into the car. Also, right around this time there was another person in the back seat of the car, an Asian young lady who the dream plot just sort of threw in like she'd always been there was well.

When outside the store before this conversation, I'd seen some of the employees through the window. Now as I went into the store, the layout changed (baaad dream logic, bad) and also I no longer remember having Teddy (baaad dream edit? lol). I sort of recognized the employees (a guy and a girl in toned-down punky haircuts and stuff) and well it was the same kind of store so I just went with it. I walked past the main customers and those two employees, feeling that the help I wanted wasn't in that area, and I would know the right kind of person when I saw them... if they were there at all.

I saw a lady behind a different counter, she was older and I think she had longish light-colored hair. I could see in her eyes that she held wisdom and knowledge of the sort I was looking for, or something very close to it, so I walked up to her and said I needed help. I forget exactly how I phrased it, possibly being under attack from darkness I was afraid to talk about in public, but at the end I said, "and I'm not looking for help from 'god'" and I even used air quotes.

She nodded, seeming to understand, and then I realized she had totally vanished while I'd... stood there staring for a moment? The Asian girl from the car was now with me (she'd come to check on me I think) and I said, "Wow, she's good." I knew the older lady was going to either talk to someone before talking to me again, or was fetching someone else... possibly because she'd told me. I forget.

It was only a moment or two later that a short, elderly Asian woman walked out from a back room and guided me to go sit nearby with her on a sort of round booth-like seat without a table. I sat down with her and the other girl who was with me, and started telling her about the zombies. I really don't remember what all I said, but this all seemed to make sense to her and she was saying something back to me, I'm not sure what, but as she did so her eyes started looking past me. I looked behind me, back the way I had come, and the area there was totally obscured by almost living darkness.

The old lady got up yelling some kind of curse or something at it (I forget, words of banishment probably) and stretched out her hand. From it came a yellow-white stream of magic with a thick orange-red cord through the middle of it, and it made a long line as it struck into the darkness. A male voice said something from inside the darkness, I don't remember what it was but probably something about the futility of her standing against him. Then I could see a man in the darkness there, and I knew it was one of the zombies, but now it was like I also knew they were actually vampires. Could be that was part of the dialogue, I wish I could remember it better.

The man countered the magic with his own power (which I don't remember what it looked like), and the lady shriveled up and fell backwards, dead. The other girl by me tried to get in his way as well and I think she also either died or got zapped into unconsciousness. Then I was on the floor as well, passing out because he'd hit me with some of that power next, and as everything went dark I heard the voice of Vampire Hunter D asking a very short question. Sadly, I can't remember the question now, though I do believe it had to do with asking where I had vanished to. I realized that perhaps I had disappeared off the floor completely, perhaps with my female friend too, and maybe the lady who I had seen in the previous dream had done it? Perhaps all hope was not yet lost?

I think I was either playing a video game or watching something on TV, and it was getting into WWII history stuff... either whatever I was doing, or the conversation around me. Then on the TV screen was a guy in a Nazi uniform throwing a torch at something. A moment later I became that guy who'd thrown the torch, and I think at first I might have been Karl (one of my roleplay chars inspired by Karl Kroenen from Hellboy)... but shortly thereafter I was one of the men on his squad instead. Mind you, this was pretty much with the complete mindset of a Nazi SS agent/soldier.

What we were throwing torches at was some long wooden building, and it was daylight and wartime. I think I realized the thing was going to blow up and I told everybody to run and started booking it across the field surrounding that side of the building. The whole thing did blow, and the shockwave was so strong it threw me several feet and I landed tumbling. I stayed lying down for the moment and put my arms over my head trying to protect it. Stuff was raining out of the sky from the explosion and some did hit me on the head just as I was trying to cover it, but not too badly.

I'm not exactly sure what happened next, but I do know I got up and got further away, and I was looking for Karl and couldn't find him. There was some nonsense about a train and some nurse lady who I asked if she knew where Karl was and she kept saying other stuff so I asked again and she said yes. I followed her quite a ways to some building and up into it several floors. I kept looking around and didn't see him, and the place didn't look right at all. It looked like a doctor's office, and around this point dream logic decided I was in a hospital.

Getting frustrated, I asked the nurse again where he was. She said, "There," and pointed to a hat that would work for the uniform I was wearing. Supposedly it was my hat, she thus informed me (*shrug* dream logic strikes again, it could have been; I wasn't impressed even if it was). I said something to the effect of, "No, you moron, I asked you where my Commander is!"

(ganked from chat transcript cuz I'm lazy and I dunno... it kind of fits the feel of the weirdness of the entire dream)

I had an ... awful dream... Aliens finally gave me a nightmare...

well... at first it was from either like a movie or someone else's perspective, I remember this scientist guy and a couple military guys... and there was some confusion (dream logic fail) about what exactly had happened to them but they'd survived, and this was on some kind of either colony outpost or ship (yes, more logic fail, BIG DIFF lol)

well, someone finally figured out the scientist might have been uh... alienfied

and right as they're having this epiphany, my perspective changed to being the scientist

with baaaaaad abdominal pain >__>

and my brain is going NO WE ARE NOT GOING HERE ^^;

so as I'm trying to figure out what the hell to do to live thru this, somebody's figured out the alien babies don't like UV light

and they have a little flashlight that apparently gives off UV rays

.......so here we are trying to keep this thing from uh, exploding out of me

nevermind that logic failed that whole section badly

I would'a been soo dead as a real person

it was like under my skin and moving around and trying to get out and crap >__>;;

logic. fail. and damn but it hurt.

I woke up from that before it had killed me and I think we had worked out a way to get rid of it safely

It started with thinking I'd woken up from the previous dream. I was in my bed in my place except it in no way resembled my real bed/place (yet my brain was convinced it was all normal). My kid sister showed up and wanted to play a complicated card game with me which at first I said I didn't know the rules to, so she said she'd teach me or show me, and then later seemed more like some sort of "magic trick." So she was dealing the cards and making piles out of them and asking me to pick a card and kept doing whatever it was she was doing. I was so out of it, I felt like I was really doped up on medication or perhaps I was still trying to hold on to the feeling of sleep.

My sister suddenly admitted as she combined most of the cards together again that it had been quite a while since she'd actually made sure all the cards were there. She dropped a card and said something like, "Oh mannnn" as it slid between the bed and the wall. I said I'd get it, and I think she said not to worry about it right away but I was determined to do it. I followed where the card had gone with my hand, then the bed was further away from the wall for some reason and I could keep following the route down to the floor which I did with my entire body. (Now that I think about it, the bed was sort of hospital-institutional with nicer bedding.) On the white-tile floor now, under the bed looking for the card (which was nowhere to be seen) and then I saw a length of thin chain (larger than necklace chain but smaller than the sort of chain you'd chain a gate closed with... the individual, round links might have been about 1/4 inch in diameter or maybe a touch bigger).

I wanted the chain, and I remember my sister saying something that I should leave it alone or get back to what she was showing me but I didn't care. There were other bits of chain too, two of them but in the end I stuck with the original one. It was at least two feet long and one end had a clasp, like a basic round jewelry clasp except larger, the same size as the links. I was out from under the bed by now and made the chain go around my right ankle, securing it there with the clasp and letting the other end trail. For the moment I let it drag on the floor and left the room, going out into the hallway. I don't really remember the hallway very well except that it was long and there were other doors leading into it, like a dorm floor or perhaps a hospital. There was a lot of white. I think one reason I'm having trouble remembering is because at this point I realized I was dreaming and I wanted to make the dream interesting.

I had been looking left down the hall but now I went right, starting to run a bit, holding on to the end of the chain so it wouldn't trip me. I wanted to get away, I wanted to escape, I didn't want to be here anymore, and I was thinking it's because I'm crazy and I'm in an asylum but I know this place is actually evil and I have to get out! Have to run, have to try. As I was thinking this stuff trying to convince the dream to take that plot concept, I could see the hallway ahead of me literally merged into a different-color hallway, sort of dingier with some sepia-tone to it and it seems like some puke-green color. There were wheelchairs and I knew that I could run into it and the dream would change properly.

So I did, still with the chain around my ankle (which as the plot went now was something I'd been secured to my bed with and had broken). As soon as I was in the dingier hallway I was completely in the mental hospital, and it wasn't really very easy to run or think because of the medication I was on... that had failed to keep me properly in bed. Up ahead the hallway got wider before going back to normal size, and in the middle of the wide part was a room that I couldn't see any details about except that its walls were made of the same painted-over cinder blocks as the hallway walls. There was a man sitting against the hall wall on the left on almost the far side of the room-thing. I knew he was a patient too, but I remember thinking I shouldn't trust anyone in my little escape attempt and then it seems like I remember another patient who was a friend (or at least someone I kinda trusted) saying this guy was bad news... that he sided with the staff.

Then a nurse came out of where there was apparently a door on the left side of the room-thing and I panicked because I didn't want her to see me. She was going to talk to the man or something, and although I thought for sure she'd see me I managed to go to the right without her noticing. Although the hallway continued I knew I couldn't go that way at least right now, but there was a smaller hall where I had headed to the right, and there were a couple of little staff-related rooms there, one to the left and one to the right.

I was totally lost because I'd never seen these rooms before (I'm not sure I'd seen much of the hospital before). It seems like I realized there was someone on the left side, meanwhile the lady back out in the hall was heading my direction so I went into the room on the right and at this point was only really looking for somewhere to hide. It looked like a storage and equipment room, things laid out on shelves, some of which had no backs and were spaced out in the middle of the room. I kept along the right-side wall seeing that it had a nook in it in the corner (that went right again just a little) where maybe I could hide.

Diagram time! Mostly because if anybody can see what the heck I'm talking about by now, you're doing good.

,--,______, ,| || || |---------------The open space on the upper right is the door I came in from, and the nook is in the upper left.

When I got there I noticed that there appeared to be a door on the right side of this nook (when standing in front of it with the main room's left wall to one's left as oriented in the diagram above). It looked like a very ordinary door, a bit worn and uninteresting and painted white like the rest of the walls in the room. It wasn't locked as I opened it, but right behind was a very obviously not normal door. It was a light brown color and had no door handle. I was scared now that the nurse was going to show up any second, and I had no idea if there was some sort of special trick involved in opening the second door. I tried just pushing on it, and it actually just pushed inwards. It was almost like it was a very light piece of wood that I then had to hold onto so it didn't fall because it wasn't attached to anything. Maybe it was broken... because it had sure seemed like the first major sign of "things aren't right here in supposedly-honest asylum land."

So anyways, beyond that things were a whole lot less finished-looking, either like creepy Silent Hill mode in one of those games, or a very unfinished basement. I could hardly see, it was so dark, but I was still thinking the goddamn nurse is going to find me if I don't do something fast. For some reason I couldn't do anything about the first door I'd opened, and dream logic was failing with the second door barrier thing as it was turning into a much smaller piece of plywood. How was this supposed to help block off the doorway? Then there was a second piece, and I remember trying to prop them up one against the other in an inverted V shape and hoping that would suffice.

For some reason it did, and the doorway was completely blocked again (which makes no sense considering the two pieces of wood came up to about my waist), as if I'd just shut the first stupid door in the first place. Either way, the dream was happy to be convinced I'd succeeded at least in that step, so whatever. It was even darker now with the door properly closed, but after a moment's confused thoughts (yay meds and fear) I realized that this was a place people went and it should have lights. There was a light-switch box to the left of the door and I turned it on. I saw that the little passage I was in went to stairs downwards shortly, wooden steps that still had that very-unfinished and old look to them.

I think I then realized that having the lights on was a bad idea, as staff would guess if they showed up that someone was there that shouldn't be. So I turned them off again and moved towards the stairs. I could now see a little better as further down the steps was a large open area that was again very much like an unfinished basement. Uneven dirt floor, concrete brick walls, very high indications of perhaps windows because of little bits of light, daylight! But I knew that I wasn't that close to freedom yet. Closer, but going to those light sources wouldn't do me any good, they just helped me to see right now.

At the bottom of the stairs, to the left was some more shelving and stuff and it didn't seem like a useful way to go. The basement opened up even further to the right, so I went that way. As I was working my way along very uneven ground that looked more like I was entering the very beginnings of a subway construction sight or something, I heard people shouting behind me. They knew I was there, and also that I was quite possibly on the correct route to get out of there. I was trying to move faster, the chain still there, but as I dared glance back (even with my brain screaming don't waste the time looking back) I saw there was already a nurse about thirty feet behind me.

I kept running (or trying, I was having issues running as I seemed really tired and the air really thick) and glanced back again after another moment and I saw that the nurse was wearing red (maybe it was a different nurse, or the dream decided to change her on the fly). It was more like a fancy red dress. I had only glanced at it though, back to running, and suddenly I had a memory of someone saying the lady with the red dress was the worst possible nurse you could encounter, that if she was on your tail you had no hope. It had the feel of a hospital myth, like some people didn't believe she even existed... and yet it appeared she was now chasing me. Well, whatever, I wasn't going to give up. Another glance, oddly enough, showed the nurse's skirt was red and maybe her collar, while the rest of her outfit had turned back a more normal white.

I managed to get myself corralled into a corner finally, choosing the wrong direction to run once I got closer to the far side of the huge bizarre area. I was so close, the other way had gone to a door but meanwhile I had one very big nurse ready to sedate me. She already had the syringe in her hand and even though I begged her not to hurt me she was very determinedly going to inject me. There were a couple other nurses in her wake as well. She moved to strike and suddenly I asked her, "Are you crazy too?" and she said, "Yes." The look on her face as she said it was a brainwashed/insane but determined combination. I thought I felt pain in my neck, but then she was still holding the syringe and I was still feeling the same, not getting sleepier.

The other nurses were now standing around, and it seemed like they had sort of decided they weren't sure they wanted to be doing what they were doing anymore. They were talking about the head doctor though, and how it was pretty much impossible to cross him. I don't remember if I encouraged the thought of breaking loose, but they decided to give it a shot, and now there were other patients who had apparently followed us down here. Someone opened the door I hadn't gotten to and we all filed outside, straight out into bright, warm sunshine. We found ourselves in a little walled-off sunken area with metal steps and a catwalk leading out of it, so we followed that.

We knew we were now free, and following this path would take us to further freedom. I stopped part-way across the catwalk though. I said something like, "What about the other patients in the hospital? They don't deserve to live like that. We should try to get them out." Some people didn't want to risk their freedom by going back in there. I thought we had a chance, if we worked together, whoever wanted to go, and I did say that I understood if people didn't want to risk it, but that whoever wanted to go back in should give it a shot. Also, the dream suddenly decided that maybe some of us had Heroes-like powers. There was one teenager who looked like he could have been in My Chemical Romance the way his hair, makeup, and clothes were, and he said he had some sort of ability (I don't remember what it was). He wasn't very confident in it, sort of like a minor thing he could do as opposed to something truly impressive, but he was volunteering to go on the rescue mission if I wanted him and I definitely did. One of the nurses agreed to help, and a handful of others were thinking about it.

(I've had these notes on a dream from back on February 19th that I keep forgetting to copy here, and since I've located them again, here we go! I'll just copy verbatim what they say being as I've forgotten a lot of this anyways. Anything I want to say on it now will be in brackets.)

talk to guy at airport"have you checked on ______?"jump onto train in popcorn [the tops of the cargo sections were all open, and were filled with unpopped popcorn kernels]other peoplego past farm, see giant scorpion? no, lobsterrock lobster lol [I'd had a real-life reference to that song the previous day]get off train, I'm a princess2 warriors, 1 archer [rest of party]then secret tunnel right out of barn [we went into the barn after the train bit]lobster is now a giant ogre in drag? then gone [I remember being afraid of this thing because it was throwing around large objects and had the potential to smish us all pretty darn fast if it saw us, but then it suddenly wasn't there anymore]evil wizard lord walks around veggie garden we are hiding inhe spots me and says he should take a hostage for funI realize he picks me and runhe stops time on the othersI get enuff distance to "un-freeze-time" [that was literally the spellcasting words]others still sluggishhe turns me into a tree and I fall, break armhe turns me back human and I can't move because of armhe forms a sled-ish magical vehicle under me and steers it off w/ meothers later at campfire, the 2 warriors are arguingdark-haired one saying I was talking about marrying the other one as if it were a done deal (he overheard I'd had a vision?) and only because the light-haired one was a princeprince claimed to have no idea what the other one was talking about

I am Riddick. I wake up, finding myself in a mental hospital. Ah. Yeah. Familiar, but I'm new here. I've just been drugged after a fight with a patient. My only thought now is "I want out" and it is not nighttime yet. But no nurses or orderlies, just me in the room. I am able to leave through the door (did I break it? I think it was unlocked) and walk quickly down a hall into a room I shouldn't be allowed into. Hell, I shouldn't be allowed out of my room without supervision. They'll be looking for me any second now. This new room is all white and not unlike looking through the inside of a bunch of subway train cabins connected together somehow and there are also large bits of semi-transparent sheet plastic hanging from things. I don't like this area, the way it feels; sense danger but can't see it. Another door, move on to the next room.

This room is bigger, much bigger and all white as well. Big-time feeling of imminent doom. Something coming? Climb up on something (thought this room was mostly empty but reached the ceiling somehow... large bookshelf?). Thin pipes running along ceiling, just enough space to grab them but they don't really go convenient places. Keep trying, out of options. Can't give up now. Able to move along ceiling some, and there are emergency sprinklers here and there. Monster released into room; minotaur perhaps. Too busy trying to unscrew bits of sprinklers. Success, water all over now, careful not to slip please... able to keep grip on pipes. Ceiling getting wet too and weak enough to pull chunks out of.

Drop the refuse on the floor, hanging there by one arm and still pulling layers down. Able to pull up into crawlspace between floors; very little room. Try to find weak spot above, know I need to keep moving even though safer now. Every second counts. Succeed in finding new place to yank flooring out of; work through it only to find large stable and exercise area for mean-ass bull. It doesn't notice me at first, or it smells me but is coming towards me slow enough I can duck quickly back in hole and move along crawlspace to rip up through the floor somewhere else.

Outside now, somehow, must have found the right spot and Kyra is here. Got out a different way? Yes, Kyra's been here for a while or something; doesn't occur to me this isn't really right. No time to catch up (though we do talk, maybe others trying to escape but don't seem to have made it?)... let's move. Thought everything was okay now but then spot a sniper on a complicated fire escape; guy is one of (female) slam boss's top dogs. Run like hell across trashed-out area, dive for cover past a building but one of the shots hits me... follow Kyra over barbed-wire fence, hurting bad and pretty much fall over other side. She's trying to talk to me, seems superficial words, but now trying to help me along. Here we go, another open area between buildings and beyond that is freedom, yes? I'm suddenly dressed in leather and metal straps, and she's wearing even less (looks like chains). She has a whip I think. We are congratulating each other on escaping, she's not helping me anymore, I'm walking fine. She goes over the wall or fence here first and I follow.

Now where the hell am I? War. Everywhere. I'm in the middle of very open ground and people are dying. Not my fight, but taking fire as the enemy notices me. They don't know which side I'm on. Are some of these involved in the mental hospital? I think one side is, but this is all something much bigger now. Not what the patients are supposed to see. (Duh?) Nobody can tell who I am or what my story is. I'm just a living target on a battlefield...

Dive into a hole in the ground barely big enough for cover but it will work. Beats getting shot. Then someone is looking in the hole. It is the "good guys," they are fighting the evil that owns the mental hospital (do they even know?). They are at first cautious knowing I might not trust them. But they point out, what choice do I have? My injuries are present again, or I am noticing them again now, or I got shot again, I don't know. There is a girl, important to the leader or someone high-up, his daughter maybe? She is assigned to take me to a tent in their camp to see to my wounds. Place reminds me of desert nomads in a movie or something.

I sit on a cot and she does her thing. Bandaged now... my arm? Side? Leg? Don't really know. Just know I feel better. Much better. Woman is hot, but I want out of here. Out of all of it. I leave through the back of the tent and she doesn't stop me. Seems to understand. But now, I'm not sure what to do. In return for their services they are expecting me to do something for them? Or give them information on the place I escaped from? Do they even know a mental hospital is involved in all this? I don't care, I'm not staying here.

I was a woman character who was leaving on her honeymoon, and two generic somewhat-elderly parents were saying goodbye to me and my new husband. I'm not sure if they were my parents or his, but either way we were part of a very rich family. Then some other part of the family showed up to show off their new baby. They'd even brought the doting grandparents of the child too. The (my?) father said to the other parents/grandparents of the happy newborn that they had really rotten timing. And it did seem to me like they'd shown up to try and trump our happy event with theirs. There was an older brother of the baby, much older, he looked like Kyle from The Pretender (and for the duration of the dream, he was more or less like him in every way, except not yet a convicted murder and not a product of a secret organization; his name was Kyle in the dream). He kissed the baby, he was sort of ignoring everybody else's created drama.

I became Kyle, and was playing with the baby in a room somewhere in the house after the bride and groom had left. Suddenly the baby made this expression of horrible pain, and it put its little hands to its head. (I think it was a boy, but it felt like an "it" to Kyle-me.) I yelled for my grandfather to come over (not the same guy as possible-father-of-the-bride), but when he arrived the baby was fine again. He asked me what had happened, and I was finding it hard to describe as the image of the baby's face stayed in my mind, distacting me. But I managed to say, "It looked like it was experiencing some sort of... migraine pain." The grandfather didn't believe me for a moment until the baby did it again.

This time I could feel what the baby was feeling and I realized the baby had psychic powers or something. The grandfather believed this as well and I'm not sure what happened next (grandfather sent me away?) but the next part of the dream was me wandering around outside the house through the massive grounds (swimming pool, big garden, etc) while the party from the wedding was still going on. There were people all over, a lot of extended family. The social environment annoyed me so I decided to abandon it and go to my room.

Apparently my room was located down a flight of stairs (almost like subway stairs) near the swimming pool. There were other rooms in this subterranean living space, and I passed a bathroom where someone hadn't flushed the toilet. (The toilet paper had gold edges on it and I knew they were real gold and was somewhat annoyed at the decadence the others had chosen to splurge on.) In my bathroom was the secret entrance to my room (whoo! lol) but as I spoke the security word the tile wall remained unchanged. I figured the voice recognition software hadn't recognized me as I'd spoken the word kinda softly, so I tried again. (I had Kyle's voice of course, which after waking up struck me as really cool.)

No good... strange... I decided to use the restroom while I was there, but then got disgusted enough to decide not to (this bathroom had been trashed worse than the last one). I went back topside and wandered around the garden. Something was trying to form in my brain, a realization, one that was important and probably dangerous. I sat down on the edge of a cement and tile flooring area, and stared at the bushes and dirt and randomly-cut flagstones that made up the path going through the garden.

A lady related to me (aunt? cousin?) showed up and said hello. She mentioned something about my uncle (let's call him Fred) and someone else working on the garden that morning, tearing up the flagstones. Then she left, and the thought that had been coming now had the gaps filled in. The pipes that brought water to my room and that whole underground area ran under the flagstone path. I followed the path, looking at it carefully, and at first it seemed okay but in one area, where the pipes were, the dirt had been packed back down as if it had been disturbed and replaced. And there was even one large hole area where the flagstones had been replaced over the hole (dream logic failing badly) and I couldn't quite see the pipes down there but still...

Then guess who should show up, but uncle Fred. I was pissed off, but I kept my anger calm while I went on a rambling, true-Pretender-Kyle-style accusation. I said that he'd done something to the pipes so I'd drown and also there was something about getting skunk stuff on me (which hadn't happened in the dream proper, but as soon as I said it, it was as if it was a part of the dream's past, during the party) so I'd have to go take a shower, and there was already so much water gone into the bathrooms that were supposedly damaged by "stupid partygoers."

By the end of this my uncle was steaming mad, his face was red and his eyes were huge, his lips drawn back and I knew he was going to attack me and try to kill me here. I attacked him first, but he was really strong. I had enough to do keeping him from getting any advantage, and in the meantime I was trying to get at his head so I could snap his neck. After some struggling I did, and I snapped it one way and then the other for good measure. (Clangy Silent Hill music here, very loud and scary.) My uncle should have died but it was like he was trying to snap his head back properly now, but I tried my best to keep hold of where I wanted the dream plot to go. So Kyle-me turned away and shut his eyes, sort of having a zen moment as he stood there perfectly calm and serene. I knew I had to end the dream fast, and so Kyle opened his eyes and in real life I opened my eyes as well...

Most of this dream I'd rather not get into, but the parts that are worth posting are firstly that my kid sister had some sort of breathing problem, and had to get a magnet surgically installed in the back of her left lung that matched up with a magnet behind that in her back (yay dream logic). When walking beside her you could hear it snap together and pull apart, and she said you got used to it but I could imagine how it felt (and thus the dream logic helped me feel it). It was annoying and a bit painful.

The other part of the dream was later, in my kid sister's room (random dream creation version). She was on top of bunk beds she had (also random) and I was on the bottom one. I noticed and picked up a doll she had gotten a while ago from an obscure asian store or anime shop. Also with the doll was a sheet of stickers and stuff, and I was looking at this one piece of thin (yet fairly sturdy) plastic attached to the stickers with a paper clip. The plastic was probably about 3" by 4" at the most. I thought at first it was one of those stickers that changes depending on how you look at it. But I wasn't changing my view of the sticker...

I realized it was actually changing right before my eyes, but in a pattern. Three different screens merged in and out and repeated endlessly, with a pause to read or look at each screen. I realized this was the sort of technology I'd seen in the newspaper once (in real life), but the prototypes I saw were much thicker, larger, and only showed black and white (or well, black and clearish-aging-plastic-yellow). This thing was color (I remember blue and green the most), and it was small. There was no evidence of a computer chip either. The information on the sheet was some sort of detailed table like a statistics sheet for a toy related to a game (maybe Pokemon or something like Dungeons and Dragons), and the other two screens I think were either advertising or just art related to the toy. I don't think the doll had anything to do with the sheet or the stickers... so it was some other bonus from a toy. And I somehow knew the toy (and sheet/stickers) had cost almost nothing. They were junk, by Japan's standards.

I was amazed, and commented on this to my sister. She said, "Yeah, some of the labels do that too." I wasn't sure what she meant, but then I saw that some of the stickers on the sticker sheet changed as well. It was one particular set, with cute little messages in a font that reminded me of Harry Potter. The letters fuzzed out and reformed into a new message, so there were to messages for every sticker. And these were way tinier than the other plastic thing.

I was a kid, maybe 10? Maaaybe 13? Not sure, I just know I wasn't an adult or a late teenager. I was working in the Australian outback, somewhere not completely red dirt but not lush tropics either. I was a farm hand or animal specialist for a huge bunch of acreage surrounding a station (Aussie farm house complex). I was quite a ways out, I'd just found a large pig/boar that belonged to the station owners, and its ear was stuck in what looked like a bear trap. I didn't want to hurt the pig but I knew I was going to have to cut through it's ear to get it out. Then I realized I hadn't called in to the station for my usual check-in so I decided to do it now since I was thinking of it. (Maybe I was stalling on hurting piggy.)

I got out my long-range radio and made the call in, something like "This is [whatever my name was] checking in, blah blah blah [progress for the day? my location? I forget...], over." I realized that I hadn't extended the long antenna on my radio so I did that and waited. My signal going out should have been strong enough without the antenna, but incoming stuff would have been unrecognizable at the distance I was out. I kept waiting. That's odd, it never takes them this long to answer. Then I finally got something, but it didn't sound like a reply to me, and it was only coming in bits, most of it garbled. But the end result was that someone had apparently attacked the station ("murders") and that all pilots should fly out immediately if they were still able, and all people in the field should get as far away from the station as possible. The message ended abruptly.

I glanced back towards where I could barely see the nearest station building in the distance and I could just make out strange men wearing all black moving about the complex. Then I saw a bush pilot who'd made it to his plane just in time, it came soaring over my head as I began booking it away from the station. I didn't bother waving, I didn't want him to try and stop to pick me up. We'd both die if he did that. There wasn't a moment to spare. I know he could see me running as he flew over, and I imagined him wishing me luck. I wished him back the same. And I was really glad I had brought enough supplies in my pack for a day or two in the outback. A hundred yards or so later I heard a shot that sounded awfully close, much closer than the station. The bad guys had shot the pig.

I ran and ran and reached the outer perimeter fence. I tested it with the back of my hand, thinking it was the wrong season for it to be electrified, and I wasn't even sure which part would be electified, as that wasn't something I'd had to deal with since I usually didn't leave the property while I was out checking on animals and such. The fence was fine, so I started climbing (it was a very tall fence) but at the top was what definitely looked like wires that were there for electrical stoppage of animal leapage. By this time though I was pretty sure it was the wrong season to have them turned on (we had nothing on the property that'd try and get out at the moment, right?...right...). This wiring also checked out okay, so I grabbed it and virtually vaulted myself over the top of the fence and clambered/fell down the other side.

It was getting kinda late now, the sky darkening quickly. I dashed across the road that ran along the fence line and climbed the next fence into our neighbor's property. I didn't know these people all that well and I wasn't sure they were considered friends or if they had any clue what was going on back across the road. But I was fleeing certain doom and didn't care if the owner yelled at me for tresspassing. I'd be off his property before long anyways. Just passing through, y'know. The main farm house was nearby and I ran past it just as the owner's wife (I think) walked out onto the porch with a load of wash. I think she said something to me, but I was still running and past her and not about to stop. I imagined her telling her husband about "that kid from [whatever name] Station was doing odd things today" when she might next see him. I couldn't exactly stop and ask her for help, because I was convinced the bad guys were too close and even one minute lost would cost me my life. These people weren't associated with my station, surely they'd be safe from the ire of the bad guys. That or if I stopped they'd kill us all. May as well run.

I was out in a back field now, and I thought one of the farm dogs was chasing me. It was dirty and barking like mad at me. No, it wasn't a strange dog... it was Bucky! My dog! I thought for sure he'd died back at the station where he'd been earlier that day. He was the kind of dog that would have tore into the bad guys as soon as he knew something was wrong. I hadn't figured he'd live through that. I stopped to check on him, his back legs didn't much seem to want to work anymore. On closer inspection, there was a nasty cut along one of them, and no doubt he'd caused himself considerable pain trying to catch up to me. Maybe there was something else wrong... but I didn't have time to look now. I picked him up even though he was not a small dog and kept running. He licked at my face, thanking me, happy to be with me again, wishing he could run with me and not be a burden but at least happy to be here with me now.

I reached a river shortly thereafter, and there was a boat on it that had just cast off. It was very dark now, and it took me a moment to realize it contained a couple guys who worked at my station! They pulled back to the shore to pick me up and I scrambled in with Bucky, telling them to go as fast as they could away from here. The motor put us out in the current fast, and it didn't take me long to explain what I knew about the evildoings back at the station. My fellow workers were supposed to be going to Melborne (I think?) for something so that was our target as it would be a good place to go for help. Who'd guess where we were going now that we'd hit water, assuming the bad guys could track us this far?

I was in some sort of building, maybe a government or tech building. There were other people, this was some sort of tour I think. It was the sort of place where the walls and ceiling weren't finished properly. There was a switch on the wall, and a big opening next to it where you could see a room full of computers and people working. A pink/fushia or maybe red post-it-note sign was by the switch (looked like a light switch) that said "master line" in blue writing (probably marker) and I thought if this was switched off that it'd kill all the lights in the building (not just that area or that room), or maybe kill the power to everything, not just the lights. But the weird thing was that I noticed the switch was in the down position. That would usually mean "off."

The hallway in which I was in had some shelves and a table with stuff on it. There were two orange cats, one on one of the shelves and the other on the table. I asked if the cats were friendly and whoever was leading the tour (or knew what they were talking about) said they were. I approached the one on the table and put my hand out and it definitely was friendly, so I petted it. Then suddenly it put it's paw on the back of my wrist and stuck it's claws into me, and I let go and the cat wandered off. That hurt... stupid cat.

I dreamed that I was in the movie Kill Bill, as "B" the main character played by Uma Thurman. I even had the wicked cool sword, and I remember the scabard being blue with a couple silver Chinese characters on it.

I went into a gift shop, either looking for one of Bill's underlings to kill, or information on him. I forget. But as I was thinking of leaving I noticed that the cashier lady was suddenly doing things that would hint that she was closing up shop. And it was the middle of the day. Suspicion ran through my mind just as someone attacked me from the side.

Then I was fighting this ninja-dressed lady outside in the dark (went from day to night just like that, WTF!). She was the one who'd attacked me in the store. I was standing on the far side of a short bit of road that went around the building (I think the one I'd been in, but we were on the back side of it now). I was close to one corner of this road with the ninja lady, fighting furiously (she had a sword too). I glanced back and saw Bill walk into view at the other back corner of the road.

As I continued deflecting the ninja lady's strikes at me I saw Bill draw two strange looking knives. They had long, thin blades that looked more like fat iron needles with hilts than actual knives. He threw them both at me and I managed to hit them away from me with my sword. I spun around and stabbed the ninja in her throat, then turned around again to see what Bill was going to do next.

He took out some strange throwing star sort of things, but larger, like several ninja stars welded together in the middle so it made a sort of lethal frisbee shaped thing. He had two of these, and threw them at me. I dodged one but the other cut me about half way up my left thigh. It hurt but it wouldn't affect my fighting much except that suddenly I felt drowsy. I realized that he'd drugged the blades on the thing, probably so that he'd incapacitate me if he didn't manage to kill me.

I fell to the ground, it was getting hard to see and I was so tired and dizzy. Things went black as I heard Bill walk up and say something. I don't know what he said, I couldn't concentrate well enough. I passed out.